One of the strengths of hacker news is how the core site hasn't really changed (no broken links on any story back to ~2007 as far as I can tell). This steadiness is a rare and valuable feature.
The fact that they do this yet also expose the data and access to enable a proliferation of cool alternatives views like this one is extremely user-friendly. Unfortunately, the rest of the internet seems to be going in a different direction and locking things down.
hckrnews.com gets about 40% the traffic of news.ycombinator.com, in terms of referrers to my blog (digitalseams.com) - way more than I would have expected.
I can't even imagine another site with that much usage of alternative clients; maybe Reddit before their controversial API changes?
Wait Digg is back and they have the Apollo dev? I left Reddit over the api mess, Apollo was the only way I liked using their service. Def gonna look into that
Glad I'm not the only one who stayed away from Reddit after the initial boycott. I used to be a regular contributor with a bunch of front page posts. Being away made me m realize how much time, effort, and stress I put into building magic internet points. Now I spend that time doing things for myself instead.
Yep, before Apollo I’d occasionally end up on Reddit randomly, and with that app I found myself getting pretty involved in some wonderful communities. But the whole thing was the final nail for me, and now I’m here but not nearly as engrossed which is nice
The fact that they do this yet also expose the data and access to enable a proliferation of cool alternatives views like this one is extremely user-friendly. Unfortunately, the rest of the internet seems to be going in a different direction and locking things down.